Divers: Mick, Vinnie, David, Leo, David, David, Paul, Vikki & Mark
Surface Crew: Bob, Fiona & Mark
Aquability had been involved in the past with the collection of Northern Pacific Sea Stars Asterias amurensis, which although is an introduced pest, still requires a permit to remove from the water. The Northern Pacific Sea Star is on the list of the world’s 100 worst invasive species. Our task was to collect the seastar for educational purposes, no longer do Year 12 science students cut up rats & frogs, these days they learn the reproduction system by dissecting seastars. We had 2 groups dive, one under the pier & the other 200metres west of the pier, from a boat. Unfortunately for our Year 12 science students we could only manage to find about a dozen or so seastars. The good news for everyone else is that there were only a dozen or so seastars to be found, so hopefully they are not taking over Mornington!!
Aquability will be running other collection days, as I believe when the water temperature warms up that seastars will once again return in force.
BTW- Vinnie, 11.30am in Melbourne is about 2.45pm in Vancouver.
Mark